Latchkey Child
by nrynmrth
Summary: She's very, very young. That's his first thought. Too young, he thinks, before he remembers that there's no such thing. For SpyFest 2018, Week One.


A/N: All right, people, we're finally here...it's SpyFest 2018! As a faithful SpyFest participant, I'm absolutely psyched to inform you that this is my response for Week One's prompt of "Mission gone wrong. All because of a six-year-old girl."

If you're interested in learning more about SpyFest - which I _highly_ recommend, because it's fantastic - check out the forum titled "Revival." Voting for Week One will be starting soon, so once you're done reading this, go read the rest of this weeks responses so you can vote in the poll!

Disclaimer: We've got a good thing going, right? Let's not ruin it. You all know the drill.

* * *

She's very, very young.

That's his first thought.

 _Too young,_ he thinks next, and the words hurt because they aren't true, no matter how much he wishes they are…It's a lesson he's known since he was fourteen, and maybe even before; a lesson drilled into him by his uncle's lessons and the realisation that _no_ , the people who send him to die _don't care._

She's still watching him, dark eyes wide and unafraid, and he wants to say, _'Don't be so naïve.'_ He wants her to know that he's dangerous, that the world is full of disgusting filth who will take her innocence and destroy it, full of people who kill and kill and kill (people like _him)._

(She's still watching him. Children shouldn't be this silent.)

"Hello," he says, breaking the silence. "'m Alex." Still, she says nothing, and he shrugs, leaning back against the wall. "You don't have to say anything," he informs her as his head hits the wall with a _thunk,_ "but this will be a whole lot more interesting if you do."

After a beat, his answer comes.

 _Who are you?_ She doesn't ask it aloud, but he can read the question in her features, still fearlessly watching him.

He huffs a laugh. "I've been asking myself the same question. Still don't have an answer for you, sorry."

 _Why are you here?_ she's asking him silently, brows drawn together and round cheeks dimpling in a frown.

"Because," he says, then stops. Because—because. There's no answer, no reason, _nothing_. Nothing except her face and her overwhelming _young-ness._ He has absolutely no good reason for being here with her.

So instead he studies her, looks _past_ her age. Clever, he'd wager, what with the way she stays silent, not giving away their position. Mischievous, too, or at least unwilling to follow the rules, because her school uniform is as dusty as the bare soles of her feet. And she's _tiny._ Tiny enough for him to cover her with his whole body and successfully hide her from view, tiny enough to be missed by the soldiers sweeping through her village. _Was he ever that small_?

They take him away before he can answer himself. Her eyes watch him worriedly as he disappears down the hallway.

-o-

When they drag him back—in decidedly worse shape—she's still there, as silent as ever, still wordlessly asking him those questions.

 _Who are you?_

 _A spy_ , he tries. _I am a spy._ It's true…it doesn't answer the question.

 _Why are you here?_

 _I got caught._ Again, true, but there's more to it than that.

 _Why are you here?_

A glimmer of understanding deep within himself.

 _Why are you here?_

 _I let myself get caught._

She smiles, shows him missing teeth and dimpled cheeks, but he doesn't see it—his eyes are turned inward, fixed on a battlefield and a choice and a small, inconsequential village in Saudi Arabia.

-o-

 _"Now is not the time for heroics!"_ his handler snarls, making the comms crackle in his ear. _"The mission—"_

 _Damn_ the mission.

Alex doesn't reply, doesn't do anything except dart out of his hiding spot and snatch the girl up from the middle of the road before flying back to cover, shielding her with his body even as he realises that they've seen him, that he isn't going to walk away from this one the way she is.

 _"Stay,"_ he hisses to her in Arabic, and she nods, eyes wide and solemn and yet so _unafraid._

She cuts her eyes to the corner of the road, to a pair of identical dark eyes hiding in an old shop, and Alex understands. He takes a moment—just one—to close his eyes, to settle his plan deep in his bones. Then he shoves her, hisses _"Go!"_ as he breaks cover and socks the nearest soldier straight in the jaw before grabbing the man's weapon.

 _Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, outgunned._ The thoughts come to him even as he unloads the weapon into his foes, but he keeps fighting, keeps tearing at his opponents until he hears those beautiful words—

 _"She's safe,"_ his handler reports into the comms, displeasure dripping from every syllable.

 _Good._

In the next second, Alex Rider had let the nearest soldier knock him out cold. The last thing he hears is a cold, _"Mission gone wrong. All because of a six-year-old girl,"_ before the world goes black.

-o-

When he wakes, he's in the cell. Soldiers walk in occasionally, plying him with those trite questions—

 _Who do you work for? What was your mission? What should we do with you?_

He likes her questions better, because now he has answers.

 _Who are you?_

A spy, yes, but also a man who won't see a six-year-old girl die on this battlefield.

 _Why are you here?_

Because that tiny part of him that remembers Ian Rider's smile and Jack Starbright's laugh had wanted to see this girl happy. He'd wanted her to have a mum and dad, and three—four— _six bloody siblings_. He'd wanted her to laugh and cry and grow up into a woman who changes the world. He had wanted this six-year-old child to have the chance he never did.

He's sitting in this cell because he's stupid and self-sacrificing and all those other names Jones will toss at him when he sees her again…and also because he's sick of seeing children dead before they have a chance to live, sick of the too-small graves that belong to casualties of a war that wasn't theirs to die in. _No more,_ his tattered, dying heart declares. _No more._

The next time they question him, he just smiles that vicious, satisfied grin, takes the blows wordlessly, and slips a pin from one of the soldiers' jackets.

-o-

Two days later, his captors wake to an open door and an empty cell. Stalking through the Saudi desert, Alex Rider's grin is a fierce, bloody thing. He thinks of those young, dark eyes, the smile he imagines a six-year-old girl will live to share with her mother, and he weighs them against the bruises that scatter his body.

 _It was worth it._

* * *

*rubs hands together* Oh, I _like_ this. I wrestled with it for ages, but I _like_ it. Drop me a review to tell me if you felt the same, or if you have any comments whatsoever!

09/07/18 - Thanks to _Guest_ for a review pointing out some ambiguity...just to clarify, the girl isn't actually in the cell with him. He's hallucinating/imagining her, which is why none of her questions get asked aloud.


End file.
